Chapters 1 and 2 Summary

As the story opens, Temple is living in an abandoned lighthouse on an island off the Florida coast. She has created a routine for herself here and likes her life. She has candles and fishing gear. She has nets set out for fish and gathers nuts. She often spends her afternoons looking through old magazines, the pictures depicting a life she's never known. Though the ocean's level has fallen with the changing season, she still feels safe because the breakers hit on the shoreline with such force it would be difficult for a zombie - that she calls meatskins or slugs - to arrive from the mainland without being battered to bits. On the day the first one arrives, it is beaten too badly to be a threat but she knows this is the end of the safety she's experienced here...